The Mission from Oz
by San Antonio Rose
Summary: Pete Thornton, on assignment for the OSS, goes blind behind enemy lines. Now it's up to "Tin Man" MacGyver and "Papa Bear" Hogan to get Pete out of Gestapo custody and back to London - with a little help from some unexpected friends. (Crossed Swords AU, gen; rating for non-graphic violence; nominated for Best Crossover in the 2019 Papa Bear Awards!)
1. Prologue

A/N: Y'all know I hardly ever take requests, and this story is evidence of one reason why. Three years ago, Sarah's Scrawls asked me to write a _MacGyver_ fic, with the option of making it a crossover. I did some initial brainstorming and wrote this prologue, and then it sat in the WIP pile until this summer, when I finally got to (re-)watch more _MacGyver_ and renew my sense of the characters. The problem, of course, was that I had a million other things I needed to be doing instead of writing fanfic, not least of which was continuing to put the kibosh on health problems that flared up worse than ever last fall! But the plotbunny wouldn't let go until I wrote it, so here it is at long last, with thanks to Sarah for the prompt, KayValo87 for her encouragement, and jennytork for being my trusty beta and brainstorming partner. Because of the nature of the crossover, I'm slotting it into my Crossed Swords AU as a prequel to "There and Back Again," but it stands entirely alone.

This prologue, btw, was very heavily inspired by a visit to the National Museum of the Pacific War, which I recommend to anyone with the slightest interest in World War II. Also, warnings for period-appropriate language and medicine, as well as spoilers for late-season character developments in _MacGyver_ and the events of _Hogan's Heroes_ "The Missing Klink."

This story is complete in four parts; I'll post one chapter a day.

* * *

The Mission from Oz  
By San Antonio Rose

Prologue

_June 1942  
__Main office of the Phoenix Foundation, Los Angeles, CA_

"No," said Angus MacGyver.

"Just think about it," countered Peter Thornton.

"No. All right? NO. I didn't like 'Wild Bill' Donovan when I worked for the Bureau. I am _not_ working for the OSS."

"Mac—"

"Do you have any idea the hell MacArthur put me through when I was trying to get you out of Santo Tomas? _Do you?_ Do you know how many men I had to kill? Do you know the nightmares I've been having because of all the people we had to leave behind?!"

"You're not the one who promised to get them out," Pete replied quietly. "You're not the one they'll blame for promising a destroyer and delivering a sub."

Mac sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Pete."

"Hey, I understand. And MacArthur didn't trust me, either. It's not your fault I had no way of knowing how much damage they did to Pearl."

Mac flinched but didn't respond. Six months later, they still hadn't heard from Jack Dalton, Mac's best friend from high school, who'd been running an air taxi service out of Pearl Harbor. He hadn't been declared dead, but Mac feared the worst nonetheless.

"But Magruder doesn't want us in Asia anyway," Pete continued. "He thinks we'd be more use in Europe, especially given your language skill set."

"What about your sight? If the glaucoma's getting worse, especially after the way the Japs roughed you up—"

"Mac, they're not asking us to be sharpshooters. And the pilocarpine's still working for now. I'll be fine."

Mac studied his old friend's face for a long moment. "You're joining up whether I come with you or not, aren't you?"

Pete shrugged a little. "Hitler hates the blind and the lame as much as he hates the Jews and the Slavs. Someone has to stop him."

They stared at each other for a moment before Mac stated, "Three conditions."

"Shoot."

"One, we still work for Phoenix first; any OSS assignments are officially secondment. Two, I don't carry a gun. And three, you don't do field work unless absolutely necessary."

"Mac!"

"I'm serious, Pete. We both know your eyes could go any time. I do _not_ want to have to pull you out of trouble _again_."

"You're acting like I knew the Japanese would invade before I went to Manila. Well, may I remind you that I arrived on December 5, when we still thought there was a chance for peace? That I was there entirely for the purpose of doing administrative work at the Manila field office? That I _stayed_ because we had _agents_ and _civilians_ who needed my help?!"

"Yes, I know that, and I'm not saying you shouldn't have! But that wouldn't be the case with the OSS! We _are_ at war with Germany, and they _would_ be sending us into a combat zone deliberately."

Pete sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. "I can't make any promises, Mac. I just... I have to do this, for as long as I have left before my vision goes. And it'd be a whole lot easier knowing you have my back."

There was really only one thing to be said to that. Mac put a hand on the shoulder of the man he loved like a father. "Always, Pete. Always."

Pete smiled a little. "Thank you."

But deep down, Mac knew they were both going to regret this decision. He just didn't know how soon.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_One Year Later  
__Stalag Luft XIIIc, Hammelburg, Germany_

"Goodbye, Klink," said Gen. Albert Burkhalter firmly in German, cutting off the voluble stream of babble from his host, Col. Wilhelm Klink. Both men were standing on the front steps of Stalag 13's _Kommandantur_, in front of which stood the general's command car, and Burkhalter was pulling on his gloves with an air that meant he was finally finished with his inspection of the camp and was definitely leaving for real this time.

Just within earshot, playing catch with his juniors in the center of the compound, Col. Robert Hogan watched the proceedings with a silent sigh of relief. Klink always tightened security whenever Burkhalter or any other high-ranking official came to stay overnight, and an intense wave of bombings during the full moon had made the roads between Hammelburg and Berlin impassible for several days, which had kept Burkhalter from leaving when planned. That, in turn, had prevented Hogan and his band of POWs from getting out to fulfill their usual round of espionage and sabotage missions, an especially frustrating turn when they hadn't been available to help rescue a captured OSS agent, codenamed Glinda, over the weekend.

Klink, however, was still bowing and scraping. "Are you sure you won't stay for dinner, Herr General?"

_Please say no_, Hogan pleaded silently. _Please say no..._

"If I spend one more minute in this camp," Burkhalter replied, "I believe my wife will start thinking I'm having an affair with Fräulein Hilda."

Hogan stifled another sigh, as well as a chuckle. Hilda, Klink's beautiful blonde secretary, had been hit on by practically every man who'd walked into the camp, regardless of which side he was on. Her willingness to flirt back with the German officers seemed to be in the line of duty; her willingness to bill and coo with Hogan seemed more like pleasure, which put her on the short list of women he might decide to marry when the war was over.

"Oh," said Klink, smile dimming briefly before brightening again with a nervous laugh. "Well, then let us avoid that." He dutifully opened Burkhalter's door for him and saluted as the portly general hefted himself into the car.

Satisfied that Burkhalter was truly on his way, Hogan fired a pitch past Sgt. Andrew Carter as a sign to move the game closer to Barracks 2. Carter and Cpl. Peter Newkirk both chased the ball, and Hogan and Sgt. James Kinchloe followed toward the barracks, watching subtly as the general's car cleared the gate and sped off toward his next destination.

When the gates shut, Kinch didn't hide his own sigh of relief. "Glad we've seen the last of _him_ for the next month."

"Tell me about it," Hogan agreed. "Any word on what happened with Glinda?"

Kinch shook his head. "No, sir. Last I heard, London was flying in another agent, but that's all I know. The other traffic must have been either on a different wavelength or at a time when I wasn't monitoring."

"Mm. Well, let's hope everything went all right."

Newkirk tossed the ball back to Hogan then, and the game continued for another ten minutes until the scheduled end of the prisoners' exercise period. But before Sgt. Hans Schultz could come chase them back into the barracks, Hogan suddenly heard the noise of another engine approaching—three engines, really, two of them probably diesel. The prisoners turned to see two trucks and a command car pull up to the gate, stop briefly, and then drive into the compound as the gates opened. One of the trucks was a ton-and-a-half personnel carrier; the other was a large freight truck with a flatbed trailer, on which rested a fighter plane.

"Hey, that's one of ours!" Carter exclaimed quietly.

Sure enough, while the shape wasn't quite the same as the standard P-47 Thunderbolt Hogan had seen before his capture, it bore USAAF markings. And when the convoy parked in front of Klink's office, a group of Luftwaffe guards got out of the smaller truck, herding with them an American officer—a captain, from his insignia, a stocky fellow with brown hair and mustache and bruises on the left side of his face. In fact, his left eye was swollen shut, and there was a freshly-scabbed cut on his lip.

"Gave 'im a right ol' goin' over, didn't they?" Newkirk murmured.

"I'll go talk to him," Hogan murmured back. "Carter, Newkirk, get out the coffee pot. Don't miss a word. Kinch, hook my wire recorder up to the tap on Klink's phone, just in case."

With a round of affirmative murmurs, the three men went inside, and Hogan crossed the compound to speak to the new arrival while his chief captor, a Luftwaffe lieutenant, was talking to Klink. The captain saw him coming and saluted.

"Hi!" said Hogan, returning the salute. "Col. Hogan. Welcome to the country club."

"Capt. Jack Dalton, at you service, sir," replied the newcomer.

"At ease, Dalton." Hogan frowned slightly as something about Dalton's accent registered. "Minnesota?"

Dalton nodded. "Mission City. Haven't been home in a long time, though."

"Thought so. You all right?"

"Yes, sir. Goons've been workin' me over, but all they get's name, rank, and serial number."

"Good man."

"'Course, they're not interested in any of the _really_ good stories—"

"_Kein Gespräch_," snapped one of the guards.

"Hey, you don't have to yell yourself purple," Dalton snapped back. "I was just gonna tell the colonel about a gold mine I found in South—"

The guard slammed the butt of his rifle into Dalton's stomach, and Dalton collapsed back against the truck and slid to the ground with a groan.

Furious, Hogan rounded on Klink and the lieutenant, who were just walking over to them. "Col. Klink, I protest this violation of the Geneva Convention!" he yelled, pointing at the offending guard.

"This matter is none of your concern," the lieutenant returned in English before Klink, who looked properly shocked, could get a word out.

"I'm the senior POW officer," Hogan shot back. "Capt. Dalton is an American prisoner. As long as he's in this camp, he _is _my concern."

"He will not be in this camp for more than eighteen hours."

Hogan's frown deepened. "You're taking him to Berlin?"

"Enough questions, you—" The lieutenant raised his hand with the obvious intent of backhanding Hogan.

But Schultz, who'd been hanging back, stepped between the two men to form a tall, stout barrier as Klink barked something Hogan didn't quite catch, possibly the lieutenant's name. "You will stand down," Klink continued in English, "or I will report this incident to the High Command!"

The lieutenant snarled.

"How you behave outside this camp may be your own responsibility, but here, _I_ am in command, and you will not have dealings with any prisoner without _my_ permission. Understood?"

"Then may I _request_," the lieutenant said between clenched teeth (Hogan couldn't see past Schultz, but the tone was obvious), "that you put _my_ prisoner in solitary confinement until such time as we are ready to proceed?"

"Why?" Hogan demanded. "Dalton's an officer, entitled to the privileges of his rank. Let him stay with me."

The lieutenant inhaled noisily in an obvious attempt to keep his cool. "Dalton has vital military information and must be kept separate from the other prisoners. If he is not put in solitary, I will report it to the Gestapo."

Those were the magic words where Klink was concerned, and even Hogan knew it. Sounding deflated, Klink said, "Schultz?"

As he turned toward Dalton, Schultz looked apologetically at Hogan. Hogan squeezed his shoulder in thanks.

"Thanks for trying, sir," Dalton said with a grunt as Schultz helped him to his feet.

Hogan nodded once. "Keep your chin up, Dalton."

"Yes, sir." Dalton hobbled away toward the cooler with his guards, leaning heavily on Schultz.

As Hogan turned back to Klink, the lieutenant said, "Now, as for you—"

"Toeppich!" Klink barked again, and this time Hogan caught the name.

Hogan threw up his hands. "All right, I'm leaving. But you'd better believe the Red Cross is gonna hear about this." And he stalked back to Barracks 2.

As the door slammed behind Hogan, the fifth member of his core team, Cpl. Louis LeBeau, looked up from the pot of rabbit ragout he was stirring on the wood-burning stove in the middle of the barracks. "Trouble, _colonel?_"

"Yeah," Hogan growled. "I think Dalton's all right, though we should check on him just to make sure."

"He gave the recognition code?"

"Yep, 'purple and gold,' like a natural. But this kid who's captured him is a real piece of work. I don't like it."

Carter poked his head out of the office. "Sir? Toeppich's about to call the Gestapo."

"Thanks, Carter," Hogan replied with a nod and rushed down the ladder under a corner bunk to the radio room in the tunnel system that ran under the camp. There, Kinch had a line from the bug on Klink's phone connected to the wire recorder disguised as a sewing basket, with the lid open so that both he and Hogan could hear the conversation through the speaker hidden in the quilted pincushion.

"Maj. Künzel speaking," an unfamiliar voice was saying in German just as Hogan arrived and thanked Kinch with a pat on the shoulder.*

"Künzel?" Toeppich echoed, sounding confused. "I was told to report to Maj. Hochstetter."

"Maj. Hochstetter is in Berlin on six weeks' suspension," replied the other. "I am in charge of the Düsseldorf office until his return."**

"Suspension?" Kinch asked Hogan in English.

It took Hogan a second to think. "Hans Wagner," he realized aloud. A few weeks earlier, Hochstetter had captured an Underground operative whose hotheaded brother insisted on rescuing him before Wagner could be transferred to Berlin for execution. Hogan's attempt to force a prisoner exchange had gone completely wrong when the younger Wagner had captured Klink instead of Burkhalter, which in turn had required Hogan to trick Hochstetter into thinking Klink was a British agent just long enough for the exchange to go through. Apparently, Hochstetter had gotten into more trouble over it than Hogan had realized.

"It is none of your concern," Künzel was stating icily as Hogan returned his attention to the conversation in progress, probably in answer to Toeppich asking the same thing Kinch had. "You will make your report to me and no one else."

Toeppich huffed. "Very well. I have arrived at Stalag 13 with the prisoner Dalton and his captured plane. We will remain here overnight and proceed to Berlin in the morning."

"You will do no such thing."

That caught Hogan's attention—and was he imagining the barest trace of a Midwestern American accent in Künzel's voice?

"What do you mean—" Toeppich began to protest.

"Silence!" barked Künzel.

Toeppich shut up.

"Travel to Berlin has been suspended because of recent bombings. In view of the importance of your mission, I cannot allow you to continue your journey until it is certain that the roads are safe."

Kinch and Hogan frowned at each other. Burkhalter had been allowed to leave—not that Toeppich knew that, even though he must have passed Burkhalter's car on the way out to the camp. What on earth was Künzel doing?

"I am to stay here, then?" Toeppich asked.

"No. Your _prisoner_ is to stay at Stalag 13. There has never been an escape from that camp; he will be perfectly secure there. _You_ are to bring the plane to Düsseldorf for repairs."

"Repairs?"

"Well, it is my understanding that you intend to present the prisoner and his aircraft to Field Marshal Goering. Much better to have the plane in perfect working order so that the Luftwaffe can study it properly, is it not?"

Kinch and Hogan stared at each other. Maybe that trace of accent wasn't just Hogan's imagination.

Toeppich tried to protest again, but Künzel cut him off. "Toeppich! I have had reports about you—reports of insubordination. I'm sure I don't have to remind you of the importance of discipline and obedience to orders, _do I?_" And that was a veiled threat of a trip to the Russian Front if ever Hogan had heard one.

Toeppich gulped audibly. "No, Herr Major."

"Then see to it at once. I will meet you at the airfield in one hour."

"Yes, Herr Major. I will be there." And Toeppich signed off, sounding properly cowed for a change.

Kinch blew the air out of his dark cheeks as he switched off the wire recorder and unplugged it. "This Maj. Künzel's got guts, I'll say that for him."

"Yeah," Hogan agreed. "Just wish I could figure out which side he's on."

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Klink keeping security tight while Toeppich's here. Might not make it any easier to help Dalton, though."

"Not while he's in camp, no. Toeppich said Dalton's got vital military information, and it's something important enough to take him straight to Goering."

"Want me to ask London about him?"

"Yeah, I think you should. He had the right recognition code, but it never hurts to be sure."

"What about Künzel?"

Hogan considered, then shook his head with a sigh. "No, not yet. We won't worry about him unless he comes after us."

Just then, LeBeau clattered down the ladder from the barracks with a tray with two bowls on it. "Want some food?" he offered Kinch.

"Hey, thanks," Kinch replied, accepted a bowl of ragout, and set it to one side of the radio desk.

"Keep mine on the back burner," Hogan said, taking the other bowl. "I'll take this one to Dalton."

LeBeau nodded. "_Oui, mon colonel_."

"Want you to take some to Schultz, too, keep him distracted while I'm in there."

"_Oui d'accord_." LeBeau scurried up the ladder again.

"What do you think Dalton knows?" Kinch asked.

Hogan shrugged. "Won't know 'til I ask him."

Kinch shrugged his eyebrows in reply—_Fair enough_—and started tapping a message to London on the radio telegraph key while Hogan kept an eye on his watch. After giving LeBeau enough of a head start, Hogan made his way through the tunnels to the one that led up to the most secure solitary cell in the cooler. At the top of the ladder, he listened a moment to make sure the coast was clear, then opened the trap door and tilted the sink out of the way. He heard the cot creak when Dalton got up.

"Room service?" Dalton asked as Hogan set the bowl on the floor and climbed out of the tunnel.

"'S why the guide book gives us four stars with a skull and crossbones," Hogan quipped. "Better eat it fast."

Dalton nodded and picked up the bowl. "Thank you, sir." He sat down on the cot again and began scarfing down the ragout while Hogan went to the door to double-check that the hall outside the cell was clear. "Mm. This is even better than the stuff I used to get in the French Quarter when I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras."

"I'll give your compliments to our chef," Hogan replied, unable to keep from smiling. "What outfit were you with?"

"What year?"

"I meant this one."

Dalton swallowed a large bite of ragout. "Sixty-third Squadron, 56th Fighter Group. But I haven't seen much action—front line stuff, I mean."

"The 56th, huh? How's old McNair doing?"

"Don't know him, sir."

"What about Maj. Campbell?"

Dalton took another bite and shook his head. "Must be thinking of another unit, sir."

Hogan smiled. "Nah, just checking. So what have you been doing?"

"Test flights. Experimental aircraft." Dalton wolfed down the last few bites and set the bowl on the floor with a happy sigh. "Man. That was almost worth gettin' captured for."

Hogan raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. "Captured. Not shot down?"

Dalton shook his head. "It was sabotage. I'm sure of it. This plane's a new version of the Thunderbolt, adapted as a light bomber with a three-man crew. I'd just taken off on a test flight when we got a scramble order to hit a target in Calais, and Control sent me out with the rest of the squadron. Everything was fine until I started to turn to come home, and then my fuel line snapped. Brought her down just fine, but I didn't even make it out of the plane before the Germans were on me like white on rice. It was almost like they knew I was coming."

Hogan nodded slowly. "So all your bruises are..."

"From Toeppich, yeah—I mean, yes, sir. Called 'em carpet burns once; that's when he gave me the black eye."

Hogan couldn't resist a snort at the pun.***

"Toeppich thinks I know more than I do about the Army's research program," Dalton continued, leaning back against the wall and closing his unswollen eye. "I... might accidentally have given him that idea myself. But like I said, he doesn't want to hear any of the _really_ good stories—I mean the ones from before the war. Not like I'd tell him anything he can actually use, even if I did know much," he added in a grouchy mutter.

Hogan nodded slowly. "Well, the Gestapo's ordered you to be held here for the next few days. We'll use the time we have to try to arrange your escape when they move you again. And I _am_ reporting Toeppich to the Red Cross."

Dalton looked up at him again. "Thank you, sir. Heard a lot about you back in England. I know I can trust you."

Just then, Carter poked his head up through the tunnel entrance. "Sir? Message from London."

Hogan nodded, collected Dalton's bowl, and handed it to Carter. "Thanks, Carter."

Carter nodded back and hurried back down the ladder.

"Take it easy, Dalton," Hogan said as he turned to back down the ladder himself. "You'll be safe enough here."

"Yes, sir," Dalton replied, and Hogan pulled the sink back into place and closed the trap door before he could say any more.

Back in the radio room, Kinch handed Hogan a clipboard. "Here's the details on Dalton—_and_ there's an OSS agent coming into Hammelburg on the train from Hannover, codename Tin Man. Orders are to assist him in any way possible."

Hogan hummed thoughtfully. "Have Schnitzer pick him up, bring him in with the dog truck." Oscar Schnitzer, the aging Hammelburg veterinarian, was both the man responsible for the camp's rotation of guard dogs and an active member of the local Underground. Hogan had lost track of the number of people and amount of materiel Schnitzer had smuggled into camp for them over the last year and a half.

Kinch nodded, snagged a bite of ragout, and started tuning the radio to the wavelength Schnitzer used.

"Does Dalton check out, sir?" Carter asked as Hogan looked over the blue notepaper covered in Kinch's neat shorthand.

Hogan nodded. "Yep, this confirms what he told me. London wants us to spring him. Guess we'll find out tonight whether that's Tin Man's mission or whether he's here about Glinda."

"Toeppich left with Dalton's plane just before LeBeau went to take Schultz his ragout."

"Good." Hogan picked up the wire recorder. "Want you guys to hear this. Might give us some clues as to how to help Dalton. We can listen to it in my office after supper."

Carter nodded. "Yes, sir."

With that, Carter and Hogan both went back up to the barracks, where LeBeau was just returning from having successfully distracted Schultz. They and the rest of the prisoners ate quickly and were just finishing when Kinch joined them to report that Schnitzer would deliver Tin Man shortly after dark. After assigning a couple of men to do the dishes, Hogan ushered his team into the office to summarize his conversation with Dalton and play back the recording of Toeppich's conversation with Künzel.

"Could Künzel be a member of the Underground, sir?" Carter asked.

"Impossible," LeBeau replied.

"No, not impossible," Hogan countered, "but I can't tell how _likely_ it is. It could just be the Gestapo setting up Toeppich to take the fall when Dalton escapes, although I don't know why they'd be willing to let Dalton get away. Or it could be that Künzel's on the level, although I doubt it—the Gestapo never has taken Klink's perfect record at face value."

"Or it could be a trap for us, sir," Newkirk noted.

"If it is, we'll have to walk into it with our eyes open. London wants him sprung, and I already told him we'd see what we could do." Hogan pulled his stash of hanging maps out of the wall above his desk and pulled down a map of the area, then traced a winding line of roadway with the end of his pen. "This is the route the convoy has to take to get from here to the Autobahn, given all the destruction on the other roads in the area. Here"—he indicated a particular curve several miles from the camp, which they could reach more quickly on foot by cutting across country than the convoy could reach it even at thirty miles an hour—"the road goes down a steep gradient as it goes around this bend. Especially with the plane, they'll have to slow down well before the curve to avoid accidents. The trees come pretty close to the road at the curve, but if we can set up an ambush here"—he pointed to an area about a hundred yards further back—"Dalton should have enough of a clear, straight path to be able to take off from the back of the truck."

"What kind of ambush did you have in mind, _colonel?_" LeBeau asked.

Hogan outlined his idea, and the others gave suggestions of greater or lesser value until evening roll call, which on this particular occasion was shortly before sunset. After that, it was just a matter of killing time and keeping watch until Schnitzer arrived and drove up to the kennel. Leaving one of the other prisoners to watch the door and create a diversion if needed, Hogan and his men headed down into the tunnel and around to the entrance that was hidden under one of the doghouses. Then LeBeau hurried up the ladder to open the entrance and usher Tin Man inside.

The man who jumped down about three feet from the bottom of the ladder to make way for LeBeau looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and a good three inches taller than Hogan, though Hogan himself wasn't sure whether that were his true height or just an illusion caused by the Luftwaffe mechanic's jumpsuit and combat boots he was wearing. His shock of blond hair was longer than regulation, and his eyes were brown rather than the ideal Aryan blue, but odds were good that he could pass for a German even more easily than Hogan could. And once he'd made sure LeBeau was safely away from the tunnel entrance, he turned straight to Hogan and gave him a quick once-over.

"Tin Man?" Hogan asked.

The newcomer nodded once.

"Col. Hogan. Welcome to paradise."

Tin Man gave an amused snort and offered his hand. "Name's MacGyver. Nice to meet you, Colonel."

Hogan shook hands and introduced MacGyver around. "You OSS?" he asked then.

"Nah, civilian contractor. I work for a group called the Phoenix Foundation. We mostly do philanthropic work, but we cooperate with the government sometimes—worked with the WPA in the early days, and sometimes we've had to coordinate with military intelligence when we've gone in to rescue civilians, Soviet defectors, that sort of thing. Some of us are seconded to the OSS these days... and that's actually why I'm here."

"To rescue Glinda?"

"Yes and no." MacGyver took the seat Carter offered him with a sigh. "I _would _have come in on Saturday to get Glinda myself, but I was tied up gettin' a bunch of deaf kids out of Norway."

"We were the closest agents, but security was so tight, we couldn't get out, either."

"Yeah, well... Col. Conlon decided to send somebody else, a good friend of mine. His codename is Toto. My information is that he did get Glinda out, but when they met up with her Underground contacts outside of Düsseldorf, somebody betrayed them to the Gestapo. Glinda and the Underground guys got away. Toto didn't." MacGyver looked away and shook his head, clearly blaming himself. "I'd just delivered the deaf kids to the ship when I got the news, so I hopped the first flight from Trondheim to Hannover, and the Hannover Underground sent me here."

"You coulda just asked, saved yourself the trip."

MacGyver's eyes were anguished when he looked up at Hogan again. "You don't understand. Toto has glaucoma. If the Gestapo's worked him over, there's a good chance his vision's taken a serious turn for the worse, or he may be completely blind. I know you're a good outfit, and I'd appreciate havin' some backup, but I can't trust _anyone_ to take this mission without me." He took a deep breath and added more quietly, "I'm not gonna leave my best friend alone in the dark."

Hogan nodded slowly. "All right. It'll take a little time to get you a uniform and some papers and arrange for a car, and I'll have to make sure Klink's relaxed his security enough that we can get out. If all goes well, we can go tomorrow night."

MacGyver relaxed and nodded. "Tomorrow night's fine. But who's 'we'?"

"Think it should probably just be you and me. They don't normally send more than two officers to pick up a prisoner transfer anyway. And there's another high-security prisoner here in the cooler, so in case Klink orders a surprise bed check, it'll be easiest to cover for just one man."

MacGyver nodded his understanding.

"But sir, if Klink _does_ order a bed check, he'll want to see you personally," Carter objected.

"Our dummy does not look enough like you to fool him," LeBeau added.

Hogan shrugged. "Tell him I've got the flu."

"In the summer?!"

"It's been known to happen! Besides, this is _Klink_—you could tell him I've got the Martian vapors, and he'd believe it."

MacGyver barked a laugh. "Give it some ridiculous Latin name, like _Frontificus pasturalis_, and say he'll recover in twenty-four hours if it doesn't kill him first."

Impressed, Hogan pointed to him. "I like the way you think!"

"Hey, at noon tomorrow Mars is in Pisces at the same time Pluto's in Cancer," said Kinch, almanac in hand. "So if you start acting sick around noon..."

"Ought to get a few other chaps in on the act, sir," said Newkirk. "Leastways, if we're to blame it on an opposition o' planets, it'll look odd if it's just you."

Hogan nodded once. "LeBeau, Carter, round up some volunteers. We can work out the symptoms with Wilson first thing in the morning. In the meantime, Kinch, we'll need ID papers for MacGyver and some papers for Toto's transfer, as well as a car. Think we can use Klink's?"

"Ten cents a mile," Kinch replied.

"Good. Newkirk?"

"What ranks would you like, sir?" Newkirk asked.

"Let's make MacGyver a major and me a captain. No need to go overboard."

"Right, sir, will do." Newkirk went to get his trusty tape measure.

"There's just one thing, Colonel," MacGyver said. "I'd prefer not to carry a gun."

Hogan frowned. "Gestapo officers always carry guns unless they're in civilian clothes."

"I know. That's why I said something now."

Hogan exchanged a look with Newkirk. "You want to walk into Gestapo Headquarters unarmed?"

"Not unarmed—not totally." MacGyver pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.

"That's not much of a weapon."

"I don't _use _it for a weapon. It allows me to improvise a non-lethal way out of a jam. I don't kill unless I absolutely have to, and believe me, I hate those situations. So the more steps we can take now to ensure we can just walk into Gestapo Headquarters and walk out with Pete, the better I'll be able to sleep tomorrow night."

Hogan decided not to point out that MacGyver had just let Toto's real first name slip. "All right, it's a deal. Newkirk?"

"Civilian suit in black, sir," Newkirk agreed and began taking MacGyver's measurements.

* * *

The next day was the first in over a week that went completely according to plan, at least during daylight hours. The faked attack of Martian vapors, into which even Dalton threw himself with relish, not only convinced Klink and Schultz that Hogan was truly sick but also conned the hypochondriac Klink into thinking that he was sick himself. As a result, Klink never got around to re-tightening the security measures he'd relaxed between Burkhalter's departure and Toeppich's arrival the day before, and that night, Hogan and MacGyver were easily able to walk into the motor pool during shift change, drive out through one of the side gates, and get to Düsseldorf with a minimum of fuss.

When they presented themselves at the front desk of Gestapo Headquarters, however, the man on duty didn't seem surprised to see them. "From Berlin?" he echoed when Hogan stated their cover story in German. "Yes, I believe Maj. Künzel's expecting you. This way, please."

It took every ounce of willpower Hogan had not to exchange a surprised glance with MacGyver. Instead, they followed the desk clerk down the hall to Hochstetter's office, where the door was half open, revealing another man, this one with light brown hair and blue eyes, sitting behind the desk. When this guy stood at the clerk's knock, he looked even taller than MacGyver.

"The officers from Berlin, Herr Major," the clerk announced, opening the door the rest of the way.

"Thank you, Fitzner," replied the major, walking around the desk toward the door, and Hogan recognized his voice as Künzel's. "You may go."

The clerk clicked his heels and started back down the hall.

"Come in, gentlemen," Künzel said, ushering Hogan and MacGyver into the office and closing the door behind them. "Please be seated. May I get you any refreshments? I should need a drink after that drive, given the state the roads are in."

"No, nothing for us, thank you," MacGyver replied in flawless German as he and Hogan sat down. "We would prefer to discuss our business and be on our way at once."

"Very well. Just a moment." Künzel paused, then opened the door suddenly to reveal a very surprised Fitzner. "Was there something you needed, Fitzner?" Künzel growled.

"N-n-no, sir," Fitzner replied and hurried back toward the front desk.

Künzel watched him go, then closed the door with a sigh. "We're clear," he said—in perfect American English.

"I shoulda known _you'd _be involved in this," MacGyver grumbled in the same language as Künzel came back to the desk.

Künzel rolled his eyes. "Hello, Tin Man."

Hogan looked at MacGyver, who sighed. "Papa Bear, meet Agent Scarecrow."

"Lee Stetson, OSS," Künzel—er, Scarecrow—stated, offering his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Col. Hogan."

Hogan wasn't sure whether the slight dizzy sensation he had as he shook Stetson's hand was from relief or from reality warping a tad.

* * *

.

* * *

* I'm following _Hogan's Heroes_ canon in using _Heer_ ranks to refer to most Gestapo officers, despite Gestapo ranks having different titles in reality. There are a few times in canon, like "Two Nazis for the Price of One," when actual Gestapo ranks like _Gruppenführer_ are used, but mostly the dialogue refers to Gestapo captains, majors, etc.

** It's not totally clear where Hochstetter's office is in canon—sometimes it seems to be in Hammelburg (e.g., "Sgt. Schultz Meets Mata Hari"), but at other times it seems to be in Düsseldorf or even Berlin (e.g., "Will the Real Col. Klink Please Stand Up Against the Wall?"). For this story, at least, I'm putting it in Düsseldorf, which wouldn't preclude his being moved into Hammelburg later.

Please note also that in HH-verse, Hammelburg is much closer to Düsseldorf than it is in our universe—"The Safecracker Suite" is the first of several episodes that establish Düsseldorf as the nearest big city to Hammelburg, but in our world, the closest city to Hammelburg is Würzburg.

*** _Teppich_ literally means _carpet_ or _rug_; _Töppich_, according to my German name dictionary, is a variant of _Teppich_ as a name for rugmakers, and the Toeppichs I know pronounce their surname as "Teppich."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_48 Hours Earlier_

Lee adjusted his binoculars and looked again from the back seat of the staff car across the overgrown field to the abandoned barn to which the Gestapo had been summoned by a tip from an anonymous male caller. He was partly stalling for time and partly hoping there was some way he could convince the others it was a false alarm without raising too many suspicions. But no—there were two cars parked outside, mostly hidden but still obvious to a trained eye in the light of the full moon, and a glint or two of lamplight had shone through the cracks in the barn wall before being extinguished.

_Dammit, Francine_, he thought as he stifled a sigh.

His longtime colleague Francine Desmond, currently operating under the codename Glinda, was normally a cautious and reliable agent, but somehow she occasionally managed to get herself into serious scrapes that endangered everyone around her—in fact, she'd nearly gotten Lee's wife Amanda killed a few times before the war, when they'd all worked for the FBI's intelligence division and Amanda had been a young widow who'd stumbled into the espionage game after Lee had been forced to use her as an unwitting courier. He still didn't know what had happened earlier in the week to make Francine miss her rendezvous both with him and with her Underground contacts, Franz and Gunther, but somehow Gunther had found her car several miles away in Schweinfurt and called London to arrange her rescue. Said rescue had evidently been successful up to this point, but now it was going south... and there was only so much Lee could do about it, since he'd stalled as long as was safe.

"There is someone in the barn," he admitted in German and lowered his binoculars. "I couldn't see movement, but there was a light. Let's go."

He and the three junior officers with him got out of the car, and one ordered the troops out of the truck behind them. Lee continued to survey the scene, listening as carefully as he could. The clatter of the troopers' equipment covered any faint noises like creaking hinges coming from the barn; he could only hope that meant Franz and Gunther had managed to keep quiet while getting Toto and Francine into either a safe hiding place or the woods.

Lee waited as long as he dared before ordering the troopers to surround the building with a fifty-meter perimeter. Only then did he lead the junior officers up to the barn, listen a moment longer, and motion for one of them to kick in the door.

"Gestapo!" another announced as they switched on their flashlights and entered the barn. "Come out with your hands up!"

There were no sounds of surprise or running footsteps... but Lee's heart sank when his flashlight beam swept down from the opposite barn door onto the form of a heavy-set man sprawled motionless on the floor.

Lee motioned for his juniors to search the rest of the barn, then went over to check on the downed man. The man's foot had snagged on a loose floorboard, and he lay where he'd fallen; the floorboard had broken, but Lee couldn't see anything underneath, not even something to pretend not to see. Putting a hand on the man's back revealed that he was still warm—too warm—and breathing shallowly enough not to be visible from a distance. His pulse was rapid but not thready, and a quick check of his balding head uncovered no sign of a concussion. So Lee gently turned the man over—and found himself shining his flashlight at the face of a seemingly unconscious Pete Thornton.

_Dammit__, Francine._

"Anything?" he called to his juniors, aiming his flashlight at the wall instead.

"Nothing, Herr Major," came three staggered reports.

"All right, check outside and into the woods. They can't have gone far."

Three affirmative replies came back, and the juniors clattered their way outside and shut the door behind them.

Lee watched them go and waited until the barn was quiet again to whisper, "Toto?"

Thornton startled. "What? Who's there?" he whispered back in German.

"Scarecrow."

Thornton's eyes popped open. "Lee!" He sat up, scrabbling at Lee's coat in evident panic, his hands finally finding purchase on one lapel and the edge of a sleeve. "Lee, I'm blind!" he breathed in English.

Lee switched to the same language. "Oh—sorry if I—"

"No! I'm _blind!_"

Lee swallowed hard and shone his flashlight back at Thornton's face. Sure enough, Thornton's pupils didn't react at all. "Where'd they go?" he asked, lowering the flashlight again.

Thornton shook his head. "I dunno. Franz was keeping a lookout; he saw you drive up. Then when Gunther doused the light, all anyone said was 'This way,' and... I mean, it was hard enough to see even in broad daylight this morning, and my eyes had been getting worse all day. And then I lost hold of Glinda, and then I tripped, and now..." He sniffled congestedly.

"_Dammit_." Lee listened for a moment to the sounds of the search outside. "Listen. I'm gonna have to take you in, for both our sakes, but I'll get you a doctor as soon as I can."

Thornton nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

"I don't contact London directly, but Franz and Gunther do. Assuming they get away, I'm sure they'll call for help."

Thornton nodded again and coughed, a racking, rattling cough. "Mac'll come," he wheezed when the coughing fit passed, apparently as much to himself as to Lee. "Mac always comes." His grip on Lee's coat slackened, and Lee caught him as he started to sag forward.

Just then the door behind Thornton started to open, and Lee swiftly shifted back into character. "All right," he growled in German. "Come on, old man. Get up."

Thornton groaned as Lee hauled him to his feet and let his head loll against Lee's shoulder. "My daughter," he moaned in the same language, sounding delirious. "My daughter... where is my daughter..."

Lee looked past him to the junior officer who was silhouetted against the moonlight coming through the now-open door. "Anything?"

"Not yet, Herr Major," replied the junior officer.

Thornton moaned again. "No... Anna... my daughter Anna, want to see..." He trailed off in another coughing fit.

"Well, we've got one, at least," Lee replied to the junior officer. "I'm sure he'll talk in a day or two, once he's well enough. If not, Berlin will be able to get the truth out of him."

* * *

_The Present_

"I wasn't able to call off the search quite that soon," Stetson concluded, "but Franz and Gunther evidently got themselves and Glinda out in one piece."

Hogan nodded. "Yeah, I know that barn. It's got some good hiding places."

"So what's wrong with Toto?" MacGyver asked.

Stetson grimaced. "Upper respiratory infection. Hiding in his sinuses for weeks, apparently, and I'm sure the flight over didn't do him any favors; by the time I picked him up, it was in both lungs and both ears as well. But from what the doctor said, it sounds like the pressure in his sinuses from the infection was the last straw for his optic nerves. He's breathing a lot better since the penicillin shot, but... he doesn't act like his vision's come back at all."

MacGyver's heavy sigh was as eloquent as a curse. "I shoulda come myself."

"Look, we can all blame ourselves all we want, but the fact is, whether he realized he was sick or not, Toto chose to get on that plane. He did get Glinda out. And whether anyone thought about the effects on his sight, he would have been fine if someone hadn't blown the whistle on the meeting with Franz and Gunther."

"We've worked with Franz and Gunther before," said Hogan. "They're reliable. Question is, who else knew they were meeting there?"

"We'll have to ask Toto in the car," replied MacGyver. "Right now, all I'm worried about is gettin' out of here."

"Not so fast," said Stetson. "Toto's done a good job of sticking to his cover story, but it's been almost too good a job for me to justify a transfer. Fitzner, at least, is suspicious. I think we need one more interrogation to make it look good."

Hogan's eyes narrowed. "Look good how?"

Stetson chuckled. "This is the only room in the building that _isn't _bugged, and I know that because I checked it myself. We bring Toto into the interrogation room; we have a few minutes of radio theater; you guys declare yourselves satisfied that he knows something more than he's telling; and I send the three of you on your way back to 'Berlin.'"

"What about Dalton?"

"Well, his plane will be ready to move tomorrow. I don't think I can stall Toeppich any further beyond that—he still hasn't told me who his contact in England was, and I'm afraid to keep pushing in case _he_ starts asking questions. I can kick any Gestapo queries about the plane repairs up the ladder to our man in Berlin, but Toeppich's too much of a loose cannon to trust him go through the usual channels."

Hogan grimaced. "We'll have to send Toto and Tin Man out with Dalton, then. We can't handle two separate escapes at the same time."

MacGyver was frowning slightly when Hogan looked over at him. "_Dalton_," he echoed. "I've heard you guys mention that name a couple times back at base."

"I'll introduce you when we get back," Hogan promised. "He's the guy in the cooler. But if we're gonna stage an interrogation here, we'd better get going."

Stetson nodded. "Yeah, I agree."

MacGyver still looked somewhere between suspicious and concerned, but he didn't say anything else. Stetson stood, and Hogan and MacGyver did likewise and followed Stetson to the door. Once they were in the hall, Stetson slid back into character and called for Fitzner.

"Yes, Herr Major?" Fitzner replied, hurrying back down the hall toward them.

"Have the prisoner Müller brought to the interrogation room at once."

Fitzner blinked. "Interrogation, Herr Major? At this hour?!"

"I am well aware of the time," MacGyver snapped. "But Gruppenführer Hausmann will be expecting us to report to him in person first thing in the morning. Especially with the current state of the roads, we cannot afford to wait. We must determine whether Müller is an Underground agent _now_ so that we can get underway."

Fitzner started to protest again, but Stetson growled dangerously, "I _gave you an order_, Fitzner."

Fitzner clicked his heels and left without another word, and Hogan and MacGyver followed Stetson to the interrogation room. They arrived in time to see Toto being escorted in from the other direction, one Gestapo goon holding each arm and a third in front with the keys. Stetson gestured for the key-holder to unlock the door, and the three free agents hung back while the others hustled Toto in and shoved him down into a chair.

"Oh, my head," Toto moaned in German. "Can't I go home, please?"

"Not yet," Stetson replied and motioned for the guards to leave the room. They did so, closing the door behind them, and Hogan heard the click of the automatic lock.

"Please, Herr Major. I've told you the truth. Please let me go home with my daughter."

"There is no such person as Anna Müller in Düsseldorf," said Stetson, pointing to the overhead light.

Hogan spotted the bug, its cord twined around the cord of the hanging light, and glanced at MacGyver, who nodded slightly and started stalking around behind Toto.

Toto, meanwhile, was shaking his head wearily. "Anna lives in Berlin. I had met her in Schweinfurt, and she was taking me home. But I was very sick, and we were worried about bombing, so we stopped at the barn to spend the night."

MacGyver pressed his right fist to the back of Toto's right shoulder in three gestures Hogan couldn't see, but whatever they were, Toto relaxed ever so slightly.

"Explain, then, why we cannot find your daughter," MacGyver demanded.

"I can't," Toto groaned. "It's not like Anna to abandon her father like that."

"Explain why we received a report that there was an Underground rendezvous occurring in that location."

"I can't."

"Explain why you were on the ground in front of the far door of that barn!"

"It was dark. I couldn't see where I was going, and I fell."

Hogan decided it was his turn. "Your daughter was not with you then?"

"No. I called to her, but she didn't answer."

"So she had _already_ abandoned you."

"No, she—she must have gone outside for something, maybe to bring a blanket in from the car. She wouldn't—she couldn't—not after... not after I—I—"

MacGyver was gesturing into Toto's shoulder again. "Well?" he pressed when Toto faltered to a stop. "After you what?"

Toto shook his head. "No... no, it's not fair, I won't..."

"Speak!" Stetson barked.

Toto closed his eyes with a shudder. "She's already had so much trouble this week."

"What sort of trouble?"

"In Schweinfurt. I had to take the bus—"

But before Toto could 'break' any further, the conversation was interrupted by an alarm, followed by a distant explosion. There were shouts, shots, and running steps from the halls... and the guards outside the interrogation room were among those who took off running, leaving the four agents locked inside. Stetson shouted for them to come back and banged on the door, to no avail, a fact confirmed when he slammed his fist against the door one last time and turned back to the others with a wordless snarl.

MacGyver nudged Toto, who stood and moved out of the way as MacGyver stepped up on the chair, ripped the bug out of the ceiling, and jumped down again with the mic and the cord in his hand. "Pencil," MacGyver demanded softly in English.*

"Times I'm actually glad I can send people to the Russian Front," Stetson groused in the same language, pulling a pencil out of his coat pocket and handing it over while MacGyver produced his Swiss Army knife and started stripping the ends of the bug's cable.

"Is that Franz and Gunther?" Toto asked.

"Couldn't be," Hogan replied. "London would have told them Tin Man was coming in. They wouldn't try to assault Gestapo Headquarters on their own."

"No," Stetson agreed, "but it could be black marketeers. We made a big bust last week, before this whole mess with Glinda."

Toto huffed. "I hate this sort of coincidence. This whole mission's been full of them." He started fumbling for the chair, and Hogan helped him sit down again.

"What did happen in Schweinfurt?" Stetson asked.

Toto scrubbed at his eyes and sighed. "Glinda stopped for lunch on her way down here. One of the local cops, this real hotshot rookie, saw her and tried for a quick score. Faked up a parking violation and told Glinda he'd let her off the hook for 'a favor.'"

Stetson rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. She slapped him."

Toto nodded. "And he arrested her for assaulting a police officer. I had to pay a thousand Marks to bail her out. But her car was already at the police station when Gunther found it, so there's no telling what the cop did to it before I got there."

Stetson sobered. "You're thinking a tailing device?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Franz and Gunther had plenty of opportunities to betray me if they'd been unreliable, but they didn't—at least, I don't think they meant to leave me behind when I tripped. Glinda was sure she didn't let anything slip. And the barn's several miles from the nearest house, so it's not like there were any neighbors to get nosy. But if that cop was willing to use his badge to coerce Glinda _before_ she rejected him..."

"He'd be the type to use the Gestapo for revenge afterward," Hogan agreed.

Stetson visibly bit back a curse. "Well, two can play at that game. I'll send one of my captains to check it out—that kind of thing is illegal even in Germany. 'Course, we have to get out of here first..."

"'M workin' on it," said MacGyver abstractedly. He had by this point stripped the outer insulation off most of the bug cable, discarded the bug itself, stuck one end of one wire into the exposed graphite at the blunt end of the pencil, and wrapped the same end of the other wire around a rivet on the door. He finished stripping and separating the other ends and shot an appraising glance up at the light, then shook his head. "This cable's too short. Gonna have to use the light switch. You guys hang tight." He expertly switched from the knife blade to the screwdriver blade of his tool as he turned to the light switch.

Toto chuckled bitterly. "It won't make any difference to _me_."

"We're gonna get you outta here," MacGyver insisted, starting to unscrew the face plate.

Toto's face softened. "I know you will."

"And while I don't wanna say 'I told you so'—"

"Oh, don't start, Mac!"

"Our deal was no field work!"

"Unless absolutely necessary, and it was! The only other available agent in the whole of Europe was Dorothy, and not only is her German still not good enough to pass, Scarecrow had left strict orders with Conlon that she's not to leave London!"

Hogan frowned. "Dorothy?"

"My wife," Stetson admitted as MacGyver turned off the light. "It was her mother's name. That's what gave Conlon the idea of giving the rest of our team and these two codenames from _The Wizard of Oz_."

MacGyver grumbled something Hogan didn't catch and peered into the switch box. "Not quite enough light. I need a belt buckle."

Hogan whipped off his own belt and held the shiny buckle up to reflect what little light was coming in from the window in the door over to the switch box. Stetson did the same.

"Perfect." MacGyver wired the loose ends of the cable into the switch, slid a glove onto his right hand for insulation, and moved to the door.

Then he nodded at Hogan, who slipped behind him and flipped the switch. Not only did the light come on, but MacGyver used the point of the pencil as an arc welder to cut open the lock plate of the electrified door. Once that was done, he handed the contraption to Hogan, who switched off the light again, and manually opened the lock while Stetson helped Toto to his feet and put handcuffs on him. MacGyver then opened the door, and Hogan pulled the cable out of the switch, stuffed the pencil and cable into his own pocket, and helped Stetson steer Toto out into the hall.

They were just finishing the paperwork farce in Hochstetter's office when the alarm finally shut off. Fitzner passed the door a moment later, then doubled back in surprise.

"Ah, Fitzner," Stetson said, putting his pen back in its stand and himself back into character, before Fitzner could get further than opening his mouth to ask something. "Find me the guards who were assigned to the interrogation room, will you? I'll want a complete report on the assault on this building—"

"It was the black market, sir," Fitzner blurted out.

"—_after_ I have dealt with their desertion of their posts."

Fitzner gaped like a fish, closed his mouth again, and clicked his heels with a nod. "Yes, Herr Major." And he left.

Stetson stood and ushered Hogan, MacGyver, and Toto outside, conspicuously bidding the two ersatz Gestapo men farewell. Then MacGyver got in the back seat with Toto, and Hogan slid into the driver's seat and drove off as quickly as was safe.

"We're clear," he announced once they were well away from Gestapo Headquarters and he was sure they weren't being followed.

Toto sighed in relief and slumped against MacGyver, who started taking off his handcuffs. "I owe you yet another one, Mac," Toto whispered.

"Hey," MacGyver replied. "Who's keepin' score?"

"Thank God you taught me Sign. I'm not sure I would have recognized your voice otherwise; my ears still aren't quite up to snuff. And my eyes..."

"Can you see anything at all?"

"_Sometimes_ dark shapes against bright light, but that's all."

"Well. We'll get you home. You'll just have to leave it to Scarecrow and Papa Bear to end the war," MacGyver added in a tone that Hogan suspected went with a teasing smile.

"You never know," Hogan replied with a teasing smile of his own. "We just might."

* * *

.

* * *

* This idea actually comes from the _Mission: Impossible_ Season 4 episode "Death Squad" (which featured guest star Leon Askin, better known as Gen. Burkhalter!), but it's always struck me as Mac's improvisational style.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Unsurprisingly, Toto was sound asleep by the time Hogan coasted to a stop on the road outside of Stalag 13. "Hate to wake 'im," MacGyver murmured before proceeding to do just that.

Toto roused only just enough for MacGyver to help him out of the car and, with MacGyver's guidance, to stumble after Hogan to the stump that marked the entrance to the emergency tunnel. There they had to wait for a patrol to pass and duck a searchlight sweep before Hogan could open the trap door in the stump while MacGyver tried to rouse Toto further. Then, by unspoken mutual consent, MacGyver started down the ladder first so as to guide Toto from behind, while Hogan brought up the rear. When he reached the ground himself, he found Carter and MacGyver half-carrying Toto to a nearby cot, while LeBeau approached with coffee and Kinch looked expectantly at him from the radio.

Hogan took a drink of coffee with a grateful nod to LeBeau, then announced, "Good news. Maj. Künzel's one of our boys—OSS, codename Scarecrow."

Kinch's eyebrows shot up. "That _is_ good news, sir. Explains a lot."

"Bad news is, he hasn't been able to get any information out of Toeppich as to who his contacts are in England. Worse news is, Toto's blindness appears to be permanent, so we'll have to take extra precautions when we take him to the plane."

"Well, we've been talking to London, and their good news is, Col. Forbes is close to nailing the spy ring connected to the saboteur on their end. So if Scarecrow can take care of Toeppich after we spring Dalton, that'll make it a clean sweep."

"Good. Suggest that to Conlon, will you? Oh, and make sure to tell him that Toto is safe."

Kinch nodded. "Right, sir." And he turned his attention to the telegraph key.

"Charges for tomorrow are all ready, sir," Carter reported as he and MacGyver joined Hogan at the radio desk. "The hard part's gonna be placing the explosives on the straps holding the plane on the truck."

Hogan hummed thoughtfully.

MacGyver swallowed a drink of coffee and asked, "Plastic explosives?"

Carter blinked. "Er, yes, sir."

"Put 'em on the clasps rather than on the straps themselves."

"Hey, that's a great idea! That way they'll stick better, and we won't have to worry about whether the strap'll burn all the way through!"

Hogan nodded his approval. "All on one timer?"

"Yes, sir. That'll make it easier to be sure they'll all go off at once. And I'll stagger the times so the ones on the staff car go off first, then the ones on the truck."

"We'll need to make sure the wires aren't jarred out once the vehicles are on the road," MacGyver noted.

"Oh, don't worry about that, sir."

"Carter's the best demolition man I've ever worked with," Hogan noted. "We've never had a problem with his wiring holding."

Carter practically glowed at the praise.

MacGyver grimaced. "Yeah, well, with my luck, _something's_ bound to go wrong tomorrow."

"Speaking of which." Hogan drained his coffee cup. "We've still got one more conversation to have before we can sleep tonight."

MacGyver sighed, nodded, drained his own cup, and followed Hogan to the ladder that led to Dalton's cell. At its foot, however, he caught Hogan's arm. "I just had the weirdest... this guy Dalton. His first name wouldn't be _Jack_, would it?"

Hogan blinked. "Yes, actually."

Looking like he'd swallowed a lemon whole, MacGyver stormed up the ladder and burst into Dalton's cell, somehow managing not to make too much of a clatter in his haste. Hogan followed to find MacGyver picking up one end of the sleeping Dalton's cot, then tilting it with enough force to dump Dalton on the floor. Only Hogan's hand clamping quickly over Dalton's mouth kept him from yelling loudly enough to summon a guard.

"Keep your voices down," Hogan warned them both and took his hand off Dalton's mouth.

"Hey, what's the big—" Dalton began until MacGyver crouched in front of him. "_Mac!_"

"Why didn't you _tell _me you weren't dead?!" MacGyver demanded.

"What do you mean, why didn't I—dead when?!"

"_Pearl Harbor!_"

Dalton looked baffled. "I wasn't _at_ Pearl Harbor!"

"Like hell you weren't!"

"No, no, wait, Mac, listen. I did a little air freight work on the side, off the books, right?"

"You mean _smuggling_."

Dalton put a hand to his chest. "That's an ugly word, and in front of an officer, too."

"This conversation doesn't leave this room," Hogan noted.

"Thank you, sir. Anyway, I had a delivery to make to Tahiti, and as you know, that's a pretty long flight, even for a sea plane—can't make the round trip in one day. I left Pearl on December 6, stayed the night, and was just getting set to fly back when I heard about the attack. Next thing I know, I'm on a sub headed for Burma, tryin' to talk somebody into lettin' me join the Flying Tigers."

"Flying Tigers?" MacGyver echoed incredulously.

"Yeah, flew with them for about six months before I got shipped back to the States to join the 56th as a test pilot."

MacGyver stared at him for a moment. "The bad thing is, as beat up as you are, I can't even tell if you're lying!"

Hogan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"His left eye. It always twitches when he lies."

Hogan looked from agent to pilot and back. "You've known each other _how_ long?"

"Since high school," they chorused, and MacGyver got up just long enough to sit down on the cot with a huff.

Dalton, for his part, sat up with a grunt and a chuckle. "Y'know the _really_ good stories Toeppich doesn't want to hear? This guy's in most of 'em. Yeah, we went all over the world together after college, just me and Mac and a girl called Mike Forrester, like the Three Musketeers."

"Don't remind me," MacGyver snapped. "You still shoulda told someone you were all right."

"I've been a little busy, Mac!"

"You coulda sent me a postcard!"

Their voices were on the point of becoming audible outside the cell, and Hogan decided it was time to intervene. "That's enough," he stated firmly.

MacGyver slumped back against the wall with another huff, and Dalton crossed his arms like a sulky teenager.

"Whatever personal problems you two have, you need to shelve them right now, at least for the next twenty-four hours."

"Because you can't handle two separate escapes at the same time," MacGyver parroted from their conversation with Stetson. "I know."

Dalton perked up. "Escape? Aw, Mac, you came all this way just to get me?"

"No," MacGyver replied, and Dalton wilted a little. "I came to get somebody else. I didn't even know you were here until five minutes ago. Besides, Hogan coulda handled _your_ escape on his own."

Dalton actually pouted.

And MacGyver, after a moment's hesitation, thawed. "Actually, Jack... we need you to fly us outta here."

Dalton straightened with the air of a dog perking its ears and wagging its tail in anticipation of a walk. "Us? Who's us?"

"You, me, and the agent I came for."

"You betcha!" Dalton saluted. "Fly-By-Night Airlines, at your service! Where's the plane?"

"Not so fast," Hogan interrupted. "We're gonna have to use your plane, which is currently in Düsseldorf, and you can't escape until you're on the road to Berlin."

"Oh. But... how do I escape out the back of a moving truck?"

Hogan outlined the planned sabotage of the staff car and the plane truck, the ambush for cover, and the calculated risk of using the road as a runway. Dalton nodded his understanding all the way through.

"Gotta admit," he stated when Hogan had finished, "that's a better plan than I had."

Hogan couldn't really see MacGyver's eyes, but from the way his head moved, Hogan suspected he'd greeted that with an eyeroll. "Jack, your plans always end up with you landing in jail somewhere. That's kinda the opposite of an escape."

"W-ell..."

"Look, just... tell me straight up you can run better now than you could in high school."

"You kiddin'? When there's people shootin' at me, I'm a regular Glenn Hardin!"

Hogan looked at him, confused. "Don't you mean Glenn Cunningham?"

Dalton shook his head. "Cunningham was distance. For this, you want hurdles."*

Hogan conceded the point with a tilt of his head. "My main question is fuel. We're pretty far into Germany, and I don't know if our man in Düsseldorf had your plane refueled as well as repaired."

Dalton shrugged. "For a one-way trip, straight shot to Dover, we should be able to make it, even with the extra weight of three people. Already dropped my payload, and two men won't weigh any more than one bomb. Plus, I'd barely used a quarter of a tank when I went down, and this model's got expanded fuel capacity. Might bring 'er in on fumes, but I'll bring 'er in. Hard part's gonna be stayin' below radar the whole way, or at least far enough west to pick up an escort."

"We'll alert the RAF to watch for you."

"Oh, I say!" Dalton exclaimed in a tolerable British accent. "Good show, old bean!—Er, thank you, sir," he corrected in his normal voice.

Hogan could practically hear MacGyver roll his eyes this time. For his own part, he sighed. "All right, let's all get some sleep. Roll call's just a few hours away, even with the Martian vapors."

MacGyver and Dalton bade each other a quiet good night as MacGyver followed Hogan down the ladder and closed up the tunnel entrance behind them. Then the younger agent braced himself against the ladder and blew the air out of his cheeks, as if collecting himself.

"You all right?" Hogan asked.

"Pete was in Manila in December of '41," MacGyver replied quietly. "Got captured when the Japanese took the islands. Took me forever to find a way to get to 'im, get 'im out. At the same time, I was searchin' all over Pearl tryin' to find some sign of Jack. Nobody'd seen 'im, knew where he was. His hangar'd been bombed. I... I really thought..." His voice broke, and he stopped.

Hogan put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "For what it's worth, we checked him out with London. He really was in the Flying Tigers for a short time."

MacGyver nodded. "Thanks." He took a deep breath and blew it out again. "I'll forgive 'im. Sometime. Probably about the time we touch down in Dover tomorrow," he added with a wry smile.

Hogan chuckled. "C'mon. Get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," MacGyver replied and let Hogan steer him into a cot next to Toto's.

* * *

Reveille did indeed come far too soon, though mercifully not at daybreak, which was insanely early this far north at this time of year. Hogan did manage to catch a few hours beforehand, though, and Klink ordered roll call to be held in the barracks that morning, which meant Hogan technically got to sleep in for another couple of hours before hearing through the coffee pot, which housed a speaker connected to a bug in Klink's office, that Toeppich was leaving Düsseldorf. That gave the prisoners time enough to rouse their guests, get them into American uniforms, gather the necessary supplies, and be ready to move when the convoy arrived at Stalag 13. As the trucks drove in, MacGyver and Toto bade their hosts a fond farewell... and then it was time to move.

Hogan, for his part, watched through the barracks windows as the prisoners who weren't supposed to have the Martian vapors milled around the compound, seemingly carrying out their normal routine while Toeppich went into Klink's office to demand that Dalton be handed back to him. Predictably, Klink tried to stall Toeppich's request by stating that Dalton wasn't well enough to move. Then, at a signal from Kinch, a scuffle broke out that drew the guards away from the convoy, and the other prisoners went to work. Newkirk slapped a bomb and timer on the engine of the staff car; on the flatbed, LeBeau put the plastic explosives on the strap clasps and stole the chock blocks, while Carter put another on the back axle and ran the wiring in record time. And at the same time, a third cluster of prisoners hustled MacGyver and Toto over to the plane and got them situated and hidden inside before Schultz came along to chase them away and break up the fight.

"All set?" Hogan asked when his men came back in.

"No problems, sir," Newkirk reported.

Also as predicted, that was the point at which Toeppich came storming out of Klink's office and over to the cooler. Moments later, he came back, dragging Dalton by his collar. Dalton put up the best performance he could of still being sick, but Toeppich was having none of it and shoved Dalton into the waiting grasp of the guards around the smaller truck. Within thirty seconds, Dalton, Toeppich, and the guards were all in their respective vehicles, and the convoy turned around and left again.

Hogan pulled the shutters closed. "Let's go. We've gotta be back by noon roll call."

Kinch opened the tunnel entrance under the bunk he shared with LeBeau, and the prisoners participating in the ambush rushed down to change into civilian clothes and gather their weapons and walkie-talkies. From there, it was child's play to get out through the emergency tunnel and into the woods, although they had to dodge several patrols on the way to the ambush site. Hogan stationed lookouts further up the road to watch for the convoy while Carter and Newkirk did some final rigging... and then there was nothing to do but wait. Carter kept an anxious eye on his watch, but Hogan kept his eye on the road.

Just as Carter was really beginning to fret that his bombs might have gone off early, the first lookout reported the convoy's approach. That was both a relief—nothing had gone wrong yet—and a further source of tension in the air as showtime grew nearer. The staff car passed the second checkpoint, then the third, and Hogan could hear the truck engines approaching as the staff car came into view through the trees.

"Hold your fire until they get Dalton out of the truck," he reminded his men softly. "If the second bomb fails, shoot the straps off and let Dalton worry about the takeoff."

The convoy came closer... the staff car drove past Hogan and slowed down so as not to get separated... the tail of the plane became visible...

_BLAM!_

The staff car swerved and ran smoking into the ditch on the far side of the road. The trucks, which had already been slowing down, came to a halt as Toeppich and his driver got out of the car, swearing loudly in German.

_BLAM!_

The flatbed sank backward as the axle sheared away, and the plane rolled down it until its front wheels touched tarmac. One strap still held.

"The Underground!" Toeppich yelled toward the smaller truck. "Get going!"

There was a _chonk_ as the second driver put the smaller truck into gear, and Newkirk and LeBeau promptly shot out a tire each. The truck listed dangerously as the tires deflated.

Toeppich swore again. "Out! Out!"

The guards swarmed out of the smaller truck but stopped Dalton from following.

"_Now!_" Hogan ordered.

The prisoners opened fire with a combination of real rifles and firecrackers. Olson shot off the remaining strap; Hogan plugged Toeppich in the shoulder. In the confusion, Dalton managed to clock the guard nearest the truck with his own rifle and get several feet from the truck before any of the other guards spotted him. The prisoners increased their covering fire, but a couple of the guards fired after Dalton as he sprinted to the plane. The plane itself started up seemingly on its own—but more likely due to MacGyver—while Dalton scrambled up the side of the flatbed and over the wing to the front of the cockpit. Then Hogan heard a yelp that was probably a sign that Dalton had been hit. Yet a moment later, Dalton hauled himself into the cockpit, shut the canopy, flashed a thumbs-up, and started taxiing quickly down the road.

"Stop him! _STOP HIM!_" Toeppich shrieked.

The guards tried to give chase, but the prisoners redoubled their fire and managed to at least wing all of the pursuers. And seconds later, the plane took off with a triumphant roar. Grinning, Carter used a detonator box to set off his last round of fireworks on the far side of the road, and the prisoners disappeared back toward camp while Toeppich and his men fired wildly in the wrong direction. Once they were well out of earshot and rifle range, Hogan radioed Kinch to alert the RAF.

That afternoon, once health and harmony were restored to Stalag 13, Hogan sat in his office enjoying a cup of coffee and listening to Klink's end of a telephone argument with Toeppich. "I don't care if you _do_ report this to Maj. Künzel!" Klink was thundering in German. "My record stands, and the reputation of Stalag 13 speaks for itself. If anyone is to blame, it is you and your men for not maintaining constant vigilance while Dalton and his plane were in your custody."

Toeppich yelled loudly enough for his voice, though not his words, to be audible even on the bug.

"You _dare_ to threaten a senior officer, Toeppich?! I will have you _broken_ for this! Yes! The Russian Front—_if you're lucky_." And Klink slammed down the receiver.

"Let's 'ear it for our favorite Kraut," Newkirk quipped from the office door.

Hogan chuckled. "What's up, Newkirk?"

"Kinch asked to see you, sir. Message from London."

"All right." Hogan took another drink of coffee and followed Newkirk down to the radio room.

"Here he comes," Kinch was saying into the microphone. "Stand by." He took off his headset and handed both it and the microphone to Hogan. "It's Tin Man, sir."

Hogan nodded and lifted the headset to his ear and the microphone to his mouth. "Go ahead, Tin Man."

"Just wanted to check in, Papa Bear," MacGyver's voice replied. "Toto's at the hospital gettin' checked out, and it looks like the Jack of Spades has used up another of his nine lives."

"You crashed?"

"No, actually, the flight was the easy part. Made it with fuel to spare. No, he took some lead before we got in the air—nothin' serious, just a couple o' grazes, but deep enough that he's gonna need stitches. Gives him some new material for lyin' to girls."

Hogan laughed.

"Hey, listen. Thanks for all you and your men did."

"Didn't feel like much," Hogan admitted.

"It was enough. I couldn'ta made it without you."

Hogan smiled. "Tell Toto to get well soon."

"He will now."

"And if you're ever in the neighborhood again, look us up."

"Let's make it after the war," Tin Man answered with an audible grin and signed off.

"Everything all right, sir?" Newkirk asked as Hogan handed the microphone and headset back to Kinch.

"Yep," Hogan confirmed. "But something tells me Tin Man's already planning to take Toto back to Washington and make sure he stays there."

"That glaucoma's a bloody awful disease."

"I know. But there's one thing that makes it better."

"Wot's that, sir?"

Hogan put one hand on Newkirk's shoulder and the other on Kinch's. "Friends."

The three men shared a smile and then went back to work.

* * *

.

* * *

* Both Cunningham, long renowned as the greatest American mile runner, and Hardin, a world-champion hurdler, medaled in the 1936 Berlin Olympics; Cunningham took silver in the 1500-meter race, while Hardin won gold in the 400-meter hurdles.


End file.
